Radford’s baseball program added Ryan Connolly as an assistant coach in July of 2012.
Connolly comes to Radford after spending two seasons (2011-12) as the volunteer coach at Virginia Tech. His duties include assisting with all day-to-day aspects of the program, as well as coaching hitters and handling recruiting.
“Through the search process, it took time to be thorough and put together the best staff we could assemble,” head coach Joe Raccuia said. “Ryan has the ‘it’ factor – he has energy, personality, communication skills that will relate to our players. He also has the passion and work ethic to be a great recruiter for our program.”
In his time with the Hokies, Connolly’s work included coaching catchers and hitters and coaching at first base. He also was in charge of directing the Pete Hughes Hokieball Camps.
A native of Binghamton, N.Y., Connolly was a standout collegiate player at Notre Dame (2006-10). As a senior, he led the Fighting Irish with a .335 batting average including team highs of 11 home runs and 38 RBIs. He also led the team in hits (66), doubles (15), triples (2), total bases (118), slugging percentage (.438) and hit by pitch (20). He was a four-year monogram winner and a two-time captain, earning his Bachelor’s degree in 2009 in psychology and pre-professional studies.
Connolly and his mother, Penny, are co-chairs of the Michael E. Connolly Endowment for Lung Cancer Research, named in honor of his late father.
